25 July 2011

An Eerie Shoot in a 1930's Character House

Recently I did a photoshoot with my friend Nicola. She lives in the most amazing place, a 1930's character building and it really inspired me. While beautiful it has a very eerie presence to it. Especially the basement.

I wanted to capture some creepy shots in this building while I had the chance.

Not only was the building perfect for what I had in mind, so was Nicola. She's an absolute darling and has this wonderful doll-like prettiness to her that was spot on. I wanted some innocence to the subject, slightly tragic with a 'too beautiful to have left this world when she did' feel. She is also a very talented dancer and has an elegance that was fantastic to capture (it also made her the easiest person I have ever had to photograph, everything I asked she did perfectly... you have no idea how refreshing that is for me!).

The psychotic head-tilt in the first photo mesmerizes me. I love it! It's such an unnatural pose, it looks uncomfortable and makes you feel uncomfortable too. It's like she's figuring out a way to toy with you.

The head blur in the photo above was inspired by the work of my good friend Ken McDonagh. It goes really well with the child-like doll pose.

Ha! This one was actually an accident. I was testing out head blurs and Nicola decided to head bang as a joke. I snapped it and the result came out really Zombie-esque. Love it! The still makes it look like she's creeping her way out of the door towards you. You can almost hear the cliched zombie groans. It's amazing how much a photograph can deceive.

This photo was actually two test shots. I was testing the light and movement with some quick clicks and really liked them as I was flicking through the end results. I decided to splice the two together to create some eerie movement and I really like how it turned out.

This photo above I really like and I find it addictive to look at. There's something so submissive about her pose. Still really eerie, but slightly innocent and so out of place.

I have alot of photos from this shoot, some in the hallway, some in the basement and some on the stairs but these are the ones I picked out for now as my favourites. I have some lovely ones with Nicola looking into the camera more, but her body movements in these photos are spot on.

I'm submitting one of these into a photography exhibition.... which one do you think I should send in?